ISLS 3020 - Critical Thinking: Why Do We Believe the Things We Do?

This course focuses on a central question: ‘Why do we believe the things we do?’ This question will drive all of the individual writing and reading assignments. In this context students consider, from a multi-disciplinary perspective, topics such as: mental models, hidden assumptions and the place of implicit beliefs in reasoning; ‘thin slicing’ and the role of the ‘adaptive unconscious’ in decision making; propaganda, public relations and the role of the media in belief formation; the identification and evaluation of arguments and the difference between persuasive and cogent reasoning.

Credits: 3